Subconscious warnings

[Baker]

I was thinking about my section hike last year, and a strange phenomenom I experienced.

I'd be hiking along, singing songs, enjoying the wind at my back, thinking about the past and the future, when all of a sudden, my thoughts would turn to snakes! I would freeeze, look around, and about 75% of the time see a snake on or near the trail.

I suppose my eyes spied a snake-like form in their peripheral vision and sent a warning to my brain. I would like to hear of other hikers' experience with subconscious warnings.

[Jaybird]

SNAKES are there...get used to the idea....embrace it....

& hike on, my brother! :D

[Sleepy the Arab]

Ooh - maybe you got spidey-sense like Spiderman! Ever consider going into crime fighting?

[Mr. Clean]

I have felt like people were watching me, and when I look around, I'll see them. Kinda wierd to look around and see someone standing still and watching you.

[Mountain Hippie]

Often it is possible to get wrapped up in thought and not consciously be paying attention to our surroundings. Fortunately our sub-conscience remains some what aware of what is happening and often will jolt us back to reality when a dangerous and/or novel situation or object appears. Have you ever been hiking and gone for hundreds of yards without really noticing your surroundings because you were wrapped up in thought? How was it that you didn't walk into a river or off a mountain? (okay I know some of you will say that you did) You didn't because you were still sub-consciously aware of what you were doing. The subconscious mind will also go to full alert when it sees something that it has been trained to fear or dislike.
As far as snakes go, Jaybird is right. You pass within yards or feet of them quite often and just don't realize it. I don't remember what the average estimation was per mile in states that have snakes, but it was a large figure.
Of course you could be psychic, have you won the lottery lately? :D

[walkin' wally]

I have felt like people were watching me, and when I look around, I'll see them. Kinda wierd to look around and see someone standing still and watching you.

I have had this happen several times but for me it is usually deer.

[RITBlake]

I can relate to this story. A few months ago I was first in line at a red light. The light turned green and I began to turn left through the intersection. Just a few feet/seconds later I got a sudden weird chill like sensation. Out of pure instinct I reacted to this 'warning' and hit the breaks and sure enough a pickup trick came barreling through the opposite red light and the intersection at least 50 or 60 mph. If I had just gone when my light turned green, I would def. not be writing this now. Somthing in my mind or body told me to wake up and pay attention at that moment.

[TakeABreak]

I am glad someone else started this post and not me, why?? you may ask, well these sort of things have happened all of life.

I have been sound a sleep( i had either went to bed early or was sleeping), I would wake up and the phone would ring, the person on the other end would say well, I was sitting thinking about and decided to call.

I have at the last minute decided to go somewhere or change my route somewhere's and get up the road, and see someone broke down and stop to see if I can help, and person would tell they had asked god to send someone that was safe and could help them, in talking to them, I would learn they said their pray just moments before I made my decision to change my route or go somewheres.

Oh yeah I have done the same thing about snakes and lo and behold there was one not always poisenous but there it was not far away.

I have also been in three accidents where I was doing the speed limit or within 5 over, and something told me to slow down a mile or two before and I did not listen to it, and went up the road a ways and someone made a turn across in front of me, they were at fault but I was still inconvenience with the whole thing, had I listen to the angel whispering in my ear, it would never happened.

[RockyTrail]

The subconcious senses are amazing...I wish there was a way to easily harness this brainpower. I think the brain is idling maybe 99% of the time (mine does 100% of the time!:) ).

I don't doubt the snake story for one minute; proof of this happens everytime you look across a printed page and see your name pop out from 500 other words without even reading the page. How did it DO that!? Spooky...

[Frosty]

It happened to me twice, both times in California years ago.

The first time was on the trail up Stonewall Peak, in the mtns NE of San Diego. Part way up the trail I had the feeling someone was following me. I turned around, but no one was there. This happened several times, with my anxiety level rising. I believed someone was screwing with me. When I hit the last few hundred yards up the bare peak, the feeling went away, and as soon as it did, I felt silly. The sun was out, sky blue, nice view, all the great things about hikking. Then when I started back down, the feeling returned. I was so agitated I took my rather heavy 35 mm camera out of my pack and wrapped the neck strap around my wrist, so I could use it like a club. I reached my car without incident, but less than a year later a woman was stalked and killed by a mountain lion on the same trail, and I've always wondered if I'd been stalked also.

The second time was in morthern California, north of Mendocino and south of Lost Coast. I was following a trail inland form the ocean. The trail was in smallish redwoods on a series of plateaus. As I walked I developed a feeling of impending doom. No matter what I did, I felt more and more helpless and...sounds silly, but sacrificial. Somehow I KNEW I was walking to my death. I forced myself to walk on, but a mile and a half into the four mile trail, I turned around and went back to my car, tail figuratively between my legs. I have no idea why I felt that way. Could have been a sixth sense, could have been bad granola for breakfast. But I sure felt GREAT as I drove out of the trailhead parking lot!

["ME & U"]

I ("ME") don't find these happenings weird at all. After being out there for a while you begin to feel a part of a larger exhistence. Your normal senses are enhanced and you begin to see, feel, hear and smell things you normally would ignore. Many times we ("U" & "ME") would sense we were being watched by an animal and in the next moment we would come across a cat print or actually smell the wet fur of a creature. One can only hope to become part of the surroundings and sense the things that civalized society has breed out of us.:-?

["ME & U"]

"U" here. Got one for ya. I was chowin down on some manja one morning in another bro's camp and had this ear perking, dog like sense thing go down. I sensed a rodent in the mist and high tailed to my pack and sure enough, a chipmunk was fixin to rifle through the goods. I'm on it man!!
Actually, a bird told me:D

[Tha Wookie]

I ("ME") don't find these happenings weird at all. After being out there for a while you begin to feel a part of a larger exhistence. Your normal senses are enhanced and you begin to see, feel, hear and smell things you normally would ignore. Many times we ("U" & "ME") would sense we were being watched by an animal and in the next moment we would come across a cat print or actually smell the wet fur of a creature. One can only hope to become part of the surroundings and sense the things that civalized society has breed out of us.:-?

Bingo!

There are no bounds. Loss of distraction is the key to the inner voice. The inner voice is the key to the collective unconcious. The collective unconcious is the ket to imagination.

[Mountain Dew]

Baker, "I'd be hiking along, singing songs, enjoying the wind at my back, thinking about the past and the future, when all of a sudden, my thoughts would turn to snakes! I would freeeze, look around, and about 75% of the time see a snake on or near the trail. " ---- hahaha I know just how the opposite you feel. Here's how I would have worded this thread if i had started it

Mtn. Dew, "I'd be hiking along, singing songs, enjoying the wind at my back, thinking about the past and the future, when all of a sudden, my thoughts would turn to snakes! I would freeeze, look around, and about 1% of the time see a snake on or near the trail."


I ALWAYS thought I saw a snake ! Once I thought I had stepped right next to one and did the "OH crap whoa quick high-step jump away"( with a 50+lb. pack on my back) dance only to look down to see a dark drown winding stick where I once stood. The trully hilarious thing was I was then standing about 3 feet away from a black snake that wasn't at all happy about me doing some sort of voodoo dance towards it. :banana

["ME & U"]

Yo, check out my article on a good first aid kit. Funky snake story with a permanent end result... snake goggles! These things rock! When I'm in snake country, so much as a leaf moves it gets zapped!:D

[icemanat95]

Your senses pick up A LOT more than you are aware of, your brain just filters out everything it considers "normal." People who smoke cannot really smell the cigarette smoke that pervades their homes, cars, clothing and stuff, but people who don't smoke pick up on it from fifty feet away. Perfumes and deodorants vanish into the background in daily life, but out on the trail they might as well be dog excrement packed into your nose. Likewise hiker stink. We don't smell it out there on the trail as we live with it every day...it's part of our normal. But take a year off in the world and then run into a thru-hiker on the trail and WOW!!!!

Your brain is constantly monitoring everything going on around you and sifting through it without your conscious effort looking for threats or points of interest. Movement where there shouldn't be movement is a BIG signal for the brain to load that info up to your conscious mind, so are unusual sounds. So city people have a hard time sleeping in the relative quiet of the country. Crickets and tree frogs chirping drives them nuts, while country folk can't sleep in the hustle and bustle of the city.

You can learn to bring more of the raw data to the forefront of your consciousness but it takes effort . If you relax it slips back into the background again. All your senses can be tuned up this way.

[Jack Tarlin]

Mountain Dew ain't kiddin' here, cuz i've seen it.

If you've ever wanted to see a 220-pound, six-one, bald Texan evacuate his bladder and bowels simultaneously while shrieking like a woman....well, all you gotta do is be around Dew when he sees a snake.

Oh, and that was a GARTER snake.

God only knows what effect a rattler would have.

[SavageLlama]

If you've ever wanted to see a 220-pound, six-one, bald Texan evacuate his bladder and bowels simultaneously while shrieking like a woman....well, all you gotta do is be around Dew when he sees a snake.

Oh, and that was a GARTER snake.
Buhahahaha!

[SGT Rock]

Jest shoot 'em. It will make you feel better.